Jones- Week 12

Common Sense isn’t common- Focusing on the Respect issue in my classroom.

            When I was in 5^th grade, my Math Teacher always said that “Common Sense isn’t common” when a student would do something silly and could not explain why they did it. While I laughed at the saying then, as an educator, it makes a lot of sense now. A handful of my students are very disrespectful. They are very bright students but when it comes to listening to the teacher and following simple directions such as not talking in the hallway, they cannot do it. There are four particular 4^th grade boys in my classroom who are very disrespectful. I bring this up because the time that these students take to go back and forth with the teacher or do something that  they are not supposed to be doing takes away from their learning. My MT makes it very clear that the times it takes to calm students down and for students to stop talking takes away from their learning. This is a particular interesting thing to notice because students need to be aware of their learning. It is important for teachers to be aware of what the things that students are doing but it is also important for students to understand what they are doing. Another thing that I have noticed is that when students do not want to take responsibility for something that they did and I ask the student why they did what they did, the student simply replies “I don’t know.” The student assumes that this statement will get them out of trouble and what they did will be forgotten. As a teacher, this is very frustrating because I feel that if you do something, you should know why you are doing it. This is where the saying ‘Common sense is not common” comes in. Although I may think that a student should always be aware of what they are doing, sometimes, they are not. This is the case for adults as well. Sometimes an adult will do something as will quickly say, what was I just doing or why did I do that. Adults will admit to this however, some students will not. This is a case of, as I mentioned before, students not wanting to get in trouble or own up to something they have done. When students are disrespectful by talking back to the teacher because they need to “explain what happened” students are trying to keep themselves out of trouble. When students are out of their seats and something happens, students are quick to say “that wasn’t me”.  Students do not want to get in trouble at school because they do not want to get in trouble at home which is understandable. However, students cannot raise their voices and think that this is a common thing that will happen. I demand respect from my students as they demand respect from me. I can understand what is happening here. Some students do not really understand what it means to be disrespectful and the definition that I have for being disrespectful and the definition that they student have may be completely different. It is important to be clear and use language that students can understand when setting expectations for students.